The technologies for the separation, purification, and sensing of molecules has evolved considerably over the past decades. However, these devices generally continue to require the use of expensive, fragile, complex to operate, and/or bulky instrumentation such that they cannot readily be deployed for use in the field, in doctor's offices, or at a patient's bedside. Widespread advances by nanotechnologists and the silicon manufacturing industries are particularly helping to overcome these challenges. For example, many chip-based systems are now being marketed that enable molecules like proteins, nucleic acids, ions, and small molecules to be processed, identified, and quantified.
An ongoing shortcoming, though, is that such chip-based molecular manipulation systems most often are so specialized that they can only be used for a single purpose: they can quantify DNA but they cannot be used to purify DNA; they can identify proteins, but their use cannot be extended to identify nucleic acids). In short, a robust, general-purpose nanotechnology system that can be used to separate, identify, and/or quantify molecules is currently lacking.